| During the past two years, a radar and aircraft study of precipitating systems has been conducted in the central and southwest regions of Saudi Arabia. In the central region, the sampling was conducted for the periods of November 2006 – May 2007 and December 2007 – May 2008. The initial study in the southwest region was conducted in the period of June – September 2008. The main objective the study has focused on developing a precipitation climatology to better understand the natural variability and the impact on available water resources in the region. The study examines observations of precipitation using primarily weather radar data and coincident satellite measurements. The presentation will give an overview of the observed rainfall for the two years of observations and also present a summary of the comparison between the ground-based radar and satellite observations of precipitation. |